


Break like porcelain (clean the mess with bleeding hands)

by sweetNsimple



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: And then a BOW happened, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Chris and Leon are happily married in a messed up world, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Married Life, No Smut, Origin Story, Origin story of villain Chris Redfield, Post-Resident Evil 6, Post-Resident Evil: Vendetta, Pre-Resident Evil 8, Pre-Resident Evil: Village, Psychological Trauma, Resident Evil 8 Trailer, villain Chris Redfield
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27792964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetNsimple/pseuds/sweetNsimple
Summary: Chris had seen the end of the world at least four times, he thought. Had fought it, had won at crippling costs, and continued to fight.But everyone had a breaking point.His was thrown at him two days ago in Ukraine.~::~“How much you wanna bet it fixates on your pretty face?”“Why do monsters only want to fuck with me?” Leon growled. Then, louder, and with a breathy quality to his voice that was obviously fake, “You think my face is pretty?”
Relationships: Leon S. Kennedy/Chris Redfield, past piers nivans/chris redfield
Comments: 6
Kudos: 55





	Break like porcelain (clean the mess with bleeding hands)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Climbing Mount Everest](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26673427) by [IncognitoZear (MoonwalkingZear)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonwalkingZear/pseuds/IncognitoZear). 



> I love Resident Evil, but I have never actually played the games. I am currently playing Resident Evil 0, but my attention span makes finishing videogames very difficult. Instead, I watch the movies (both Anderson and gameverse), and sometimes watch gameplay on Youtube. Hence, some parts of this story are vague (Y'all, I watched the entire gameplay for RE7 and I still have no idea why Ethan is so important). I watched the trailer for RE8, though, and read other stories with RE8 Chris and I was inspired. If anyone has read my other Resident Evil stories, you will understand that I have an unhealthy fascination with Chris's PTSD. Usually, I let him heal. This time, I let him break.
> 
> There is some reflection on Chris having been engaged prior to Piers, but then Piers perished in China. After some years, Chris was able to find happiness with Leon. There are other characters in this story, but their presence is so minimal that I did not find it beneficial to add them to the tags. Please let me know if there is anything I should add to the tags.

Everyone had a breaking point.

No matter how strong you are, how brave you are, how tight you hold onto your morals, how often you tell yourself, _this too will pass and everything will get better_ – you reach a limit. You slip, you fall, you get _pushed_ … and then you break.

Chris Redfield had been fighting BOWs since the 1990’s – 1996? 1998? Since the beginning of fucking time? – and was stumbling his way toward his fiftieth birthday. He had no idea how he had lived this long.

To hear his comrades in arms talk about it, it was by sacrificing every team BSAA ever handed down to him. Captain Redfield was a legend, a survivor, and a death sentence. The soldiers that followed him were left behind in pieces more often then they ever managed to make it back in coffins, and the number of soldiers that survived his command at all was pitifully low. More often these days, he was being sent out solo, if not with the DSO agent that was his husband.

He felt ancient in body and mind, bones aching from old breaks, more scars on his body than a tiger had stripes. Chris had seen the end of the world at least four times, he thought. Had fought it, had won at crippling costs, and continued to fight.

But everyone had a breaking point.

His was thrown at him two days ago in Ukraine.

He had already been brittle. 2013, seven years ago, he had unknowingly watched his fiancé of one year get infected and then choose to die in a Chinese underwater research complex. He had been “unknowing” because, at the time, he had forgotten that he and Piers were ever engaged. Fuck Piers for never once mentioning it, but he had always been terrifyingly adept at compartmentalizing his emotions. It had been weeks after Piers’ death that Chris even remembered they had been in a relationship, and the random flash memory of Piers proposing to him brought him down hard in the middle of a grocery store on a cool November day.

Brittle. Already cracking. Had already tried to survive on alcohol and cigarettes, just to find out that he fucking hated swimming in his own head, hated the way the smoke filled his lungs, like he was walking through a fire.

Three years later, he and Rebecca Chambers unearthed Leon S. Kennedy in a fancy bar, trying to fall so deep into alcohol that no one would be able to bring him back to the surface again.

Chris had been furious in the moment, had been self-righteous and talked some big talk, but he hadn’t been yelling at Leon so much as he’d been yelling at his own fucked-up self. Looking at Leon, he’d seen something of the creature Piers had found forgotten and afraid in that bar before Chris had been dragged back into the BSAA by force.

Leon had responded so much more selflessly to the challenge than Chris had, had put down his alcohol and picked up his game face like a champ. Had fucking saved Chris’s day as well as so many lives. Comparing it to the shitshow that had been Chris’s reintroduction to the field during his amnesia, Chris felt practically inadequate.

He admired Leon a great deal.

Which prompted him to ask Leon to just try and hang out every once in awhile. Just two men in high-risk jobs that needed an understanding friend. No alcohol involved – Chris explained that he had sworn off of it for Claire and Leon accepted this with little more than a raised eyebrow – but a shit ton of greasy pizza and _Star Wars_ instead, cradled in the safety of Chris’s stateside apartment.

And then they got closer… Friends with benefits, skin on skin, refusing to commit but wanting a physical connection.

_And so did Chris’s breaking point…_

And closer… Partners, lovers, best friends, recognizing something in one another that burned like _love_ , that yelled, ‘Come home to me!’, eyes soft and terrified because what if one of them died and the other was left alone? A need to make it work, the vow of, ‘You stay alive, I stay alive’. Kissing and knowing it meant something.

_Even the strongest person in the world could only take so many hits…_

And, one night, Chris realized he was ready to make the Big Commitment again. To get down on bended knee and ask someone to spend the rest of their life with him.

Leon said “Good luck getting rid of me now,” and bent over at the waist to kiss Chris, still on one knee. No rings, Chris got him a motorcycle as an engagement present instead. Leon took him for a ride.

After that, Chris rode bitch with Leon as he took his motorcycle to the road for the first time. The vibrations of the motorcycle between his legs after having Leon bounce in his lap like he was a pogo stick had nearly been the end of Chris Redfield, but, wow, what a way to go in their line of work.

It was only a few weeks later, just enough time to get their remaining family and friends together, that they had a short and utilitarian wedding. The idea of planning something months or years in advance made Leon repeat his, “I don’t plan that far ahead” complaint and, honestly, Chris’s anxiety that they wouldn’t be alive for a wedding that far off in the future made him agree. They filed for a marriage license, got a judge, and let Claire throw a bouquet at their faces –

“Wait, shouldn’t _we_ be throwing the bouquet?” Leon had asked, a petal stuck to his eyebrow as cradled the damaged flowers.

“Or you could just hand it over,” Sherry answered cheekily, already reaching out.

Jake, leaning nonchalantly by the door in a silent and obvious display of ‘I don’t want to be here and I will leave the moment it is viably possible’, appeared out of nowhere to nab the bouquet from Leon and clutch it in a white-knuckled fist while his face turned as red as his buzzcut. “ _Not_ necessary!”

– and then they were husbands. They kept their wedding rings in a small dish by their bed, safe from being lost or destroyed, and they were _happy_.

Chris was _happy_. Leon was one of the strongest people he knew, right up there with Claire. If Chris had to make a bet on the one person who would outlive him in this business, it would have to be Leon.

And then…

The breaking point.

It was bound to happen.

~::~

The motel afforded them one room with two twin-sized beds. The water in the closet-sized bathroom was freezing cold even with the hot water tab turned all the way, but at least it was crystal clear. The television had three channels and there was no wifi. However, the room was clean, and the air smelled of lavender on top of cleaning products. The blankets over the beds were worn from use without being tattered and appeared freshly laundered.

“Do you think we’ll offend their sensitive sensibilities if we push the beds together?” Leon asked, hands at his sides as he surveyed what they had been given. Overall, they had both been in much worse accommodations.

This was downright pleasant.

“I’m willing to take that chance,” Chris replied. Less because he wanted to hold his husband at night and more because he was definitely planning on starfishing across both mattresses in his sleep and letting Leon figure out his place in life like the thoughtful spouse Chris was.

Leon, that beautifully naïve bastard, smiled like Chris had said something sweet.

They had been married for two years. Someday soon, Leon was going to catch on that Chris was more of an asshole than a romantic and then there’d be war.

Chris grinned right back, putting down his duffel bag to push the bed frames together.

Leon set to rifling through their bags, pulling out their mission files. He carefully set the television on the floor and moved the dresser it had been set on so that he could lay out the maps and profiles, face set in stone. He grabbed a red ink pen, snagged the cap between his teeth, and set to drawing connections and writing down times.

Chris sat down on the bed and waited.

“Does this look like an 8-foot tall Licker to you?” Leon asked, holding up a blurry photo. At best guess, whatever the creature was had been moving too fast for a clear shot. It did indeed have the vague shape of a Licker, and a long pink projectile like a tongue. Based on the grid that had been drawn over the photo and the estimated heights of the trees around the shape, the creature was approximately 8 feet tall.

Except Lickers didn’t stand straight up and Lickers weren’t 8 feet tall.

Chris had seen stranger things though, so he bobbled his head and shrugged his shoulders in a ‘maybe-so-maybe-not’ gesture. “Could be,” he said.

Leon grunted. “Guess we’re going to find out,” he muttered more to himself than Chris, putting the photo down on the map where the BOW had last been spotted.

They had been defying death together for years at this point, since taking down Arias to the present. Chris was comfortable enough to grin and joke, “How much you wanna bet it fixates on your pretty face?”

“Why do monsters only want to fuck with _me_?” Leon growled. Then, louder, and with a breathy quality to his voice that was obviously fake, “You think my face is pretty?”

Chris rolled his eyes. On a scale of 1 to 10, Leon was a fucking 100 and Chris, a mere 8 on a good day, was blessed to be able to call him husband. “So do monsters,” Chris said. He loved that face. Those piercing eyes, that snarky, pink mouth, that sandpaper-shadow of hair at his jaw. “It’s a face that makes everyone just want to throw you.” Often into walls from what Chris had seen. If there was a monster taller than six feet, then there was a good chance Chris was going to have to set up an appointment with their chiropractor after the monster inevitably found Leon to be the perfect football.

“Throw me _where_ , Redfield?” Leon’s eyes glinted at him. Leaning over the dresser, he suddenly widened his stance, back bent and ass out. “Where does my ‘pretty’ face say to throw me?”

Well.

“Let’s find out, shall we?” Chris said.

Of course, to Chris, it was a pretty face that said ‘throw me in bed’.

That night, having hashed out a plan and decided on doing some reconnaissance over the next two days to determine their entry and exit points, Chris starfished across both beds. He had one arm beneath his pillow and the other hand resting on his chest as he got cozy. He had showered in the subarctic water available to them and he could hear Leon cursing in the bathroom as he subjected himself to the same torture.

The poor man came out, wrapped in one of Chris’s old shirts and his own sweatpants, scowling and shivering. For such a dangerous man, he was adorable.

“Aw, a kitten,” Chris cooed.

“F-fuck you, Redfield. D-did you take all the hot water?”

“Hah! What hot water?”

Leon studied him closely. He seemed to have realized that Chris was not going to gracefully share the beds. With a sigh from the very depths of his tired soul, he flopped on top of the larger man, his lower body between Chris’s spread legs and his chest pressed to Chris’s. He grabbed the only other pillow and proceeded to attempt to kill Chris by slapping it over Chris’s face and then laying his head down on it.

Chris turned his head to the side under the pillow and gasped. “You little _bitch_.”

“ _You’re_ a bitch,” Leon snarked back.

“Only because you won’t let me drive the motorcycle.”

“Yeah, you’re _my_ bitch.”

Chris wrapped his one arm around Leon’s waist and kept the other hand under his own pillow, fingertips just touching the grip of his pistol. The safety was on so that Chris wouldn’t accidentally shoot his husband when Leon would predictably get up to use the bathroom at 2 in the morning like he did _every fucking night, what the hell, Leon_.

“Please tell me we’re not actually going to sleep like this,” he garbled beneath the pillow, face smushed between two soft surfaces.

“Fine, you little baby.” Leon shifted around and curled his body so that his pillow was instead on Chris’s chest. “Better?”

“Yes, actually.” Chris sighed deeply, content. “Almost perfect.”

“Is that right?” Leon whispered, voice warm.

“Yeah, if I close my eyes, I can pretend you’re a skinny Chris Evans.”

“Shit, that would be perfect. You willing to go blonde for me, _Chris_?”

“I did not think that one through.”

“It works great for me.”

Chris tilted his head down but could only see Leon’s ashy blonde hair over the slope of his pillow. “I wouldn’t trade you for anyone,” he admitted, like it had to be said.

“Not even Chris Evans?”

“I’d think about it, but I’d eventually realize that there is no one in the world I want more than you.”

Leon chuckled. “That is fair, actually. I love you too, and I am preemptively forgiving you for cheating on me with Chris Evans. Mostly because I plan on cheating on you with Zoe Saldana.”

“I am preemptively forgiving you for cheating on me with Zoe Saldana.”

They laughed softly together. Leon used his legs to kick up the edge of their combined quilts to his hand and then covered them up to their waists. Any higher and their shared body heat would melt them alive and make them unbearably grumpy toward one another the next day.

As much as Chris believed that Leon could outlive the sun, tomorrow was always uncertain. He was moved to say again, just in case there was any uncertainty, “I love you.”

Leon answered sincerely, no sass, “I love you too.” And then, with incredible sass, “ _Little bitch_.”

Chris used both hands to drag his fingertips over Leon’s ribs, delighting in the heaving gasps of laughter he got until Leon again attempted to smother him with a pillow.

~::~

It was an 8-foot, bipedal version of a Licker.

It did fixate on Leon.

It threw Leon…

First his legs toward the East…

Then his arms and torso to the West…

And then it hurled Leon’s head at Chris, like a football.

Chris wasn’t even surprised. Did not register surprise, or shock, or disbelief. He even thought, as it happened, _‘I’m not even surprised’._

And then he had to use seventeen bullets to take down the BOW, his mind focused on the creature and the creature alone. When it finally collapsed, Chris still felt nothing but resignation, the kind a person would feel when a day that began good eventually got tripped up with minor inconveniences.

He studied the BOW up close, noted that it had the same features of a Licker if not for its bipedal structure and height. He said, “Hey, Leon, how do you think – ”

Reality came crashing down on him, dropping him to his knees.

Chris Redfield finally reached his breaking point.

~::~

Ethan was flat on his ass, shock and fear overcoming him as he screeched, “ _Chris_?!”

Chris said, “Sorry, Ethan,” though the emotion wasn’t there – only the sentiment. He knew quite well how much this would hurt, having experienced it himself more than once. He shot Ethan’s wife in the face, ending her life.

It was better for her that way.

“WHY?” Ethan wailed.

Chris said nothing.

One thing he had learned from taking down so many comic-book style villains over his career was that they talked too much. Their self-serving speeches of their perceived intelligence and future goals gave away the plot and made countering their motives only too easy.

Chris had looked back on them and their schemes and had endeavored to be the opposite.

So, Chris did not explain himself.

He knew his own reasonings well enough.

~::~

He found Fedir Kravets, the power-hungry investor that had funded the creation of the BOW that tore Leon S. Kennedy apart, and had crippled him. He had broken both of his arms and both of his legs. Then he had dragged Kravets from his bedroom at ground level all the way down into his underground containment cell where he kept his pet scientists’ experiments – the ones that had not escaped. There had been three total, all just like the monster that had killed Chris’s husband.

Chris had tossed Kravets in and shut the door behind him, watching from outside the containment unit through security feed as the three BOWs rounded on the helpless human. Kravets had pissed himself, had begged, had promised Chris anything he wanted in his heavily accented English.

“Women?! You want women? I can get you women! Any flavor you want, from anywhere, any age!”

Chris pressed the intercom button. “I would like my husband back,” he said calmly.

“Husband?” Kravets repeated on a low, desperate moan. The BOWs had formed the three points of a triangle around him, tongues lashing and teeth bared.

“Yes,” Chris answered. “My husband.”

And then he watched the BOWs tear Kravets apart.

He thought he would finally feel something. Glee, perhaps. Or relief. Perhaps some guilt for what he had done.

Instead, he felt only a steadfast sense of purpose.

Leon had once asked, had _begged_ to know, when would it all end? They fought and they killed and they fought some more, but, still, the war on BOWs continued. Every head they cut off was replaced with two more, just like a hydra.

Chris watched the BOWs sop up blood and viscera with their tongues and had the epiphany that they had been going about this all wrong. They had been trying to kill a beast that was immortal, as impossible to stop as prostitution and the common cold.

What they should have been doing this whole time was trying to control it. Tame the beast and make it call them Master.

Chris would be that Master. He could make his way to the top of BOW production and weaponization, could make Arias and the _Los Illuminados_ look like small-time thugs.

There were footsteps behind him, and then a sound of shock. One of Kravet’s pet scientists had arrived. Chris realized that it was after 8 in the morning by glancing at the digital clock above the entrance.

“Who are you?” the scientist demanded to know.

Chris considered her for a moment. She was shaking, and for good reason. The BOWs had repainted their cell with Kravet’s blood. “Your new boss,” he told her. “I hope you don’t have a problem with that.”

She glanced from him to the containment unit and slowly shook her head.

“Good. Get to work.”

~::~

Chris stared down at Ethan, whose face was tracked with tears and snot.

Why?

Because Chris was going to end this at last, one way or another, and Ethan was a steppingstone in that process.

Because this was for the greater good and that meant doing really bad things.

Because Chris had broken in Ukraine and all of his pieces were scattered to the wind. All of BSAA and even Claire Redfield would never be able to put him back together again.

Instead of saying any of this, Chris only told him, “You’ll see.” Before Ethan could let loose another sob, Chris pistol whipped him across the face. Ethan’s had hit the floor with a _crack_ and the man laid there quietly, alive and unconscious.

Chris harnessed his pistol and got to work.


End file.
